Evening Star Newspaper, June 16, 1935, Page 87

Magazine Section THIS WEEK | LL.ooking for a Jobr So are others—thousands of them just out of school and college. Here experts explain how to avoid mistakes that bring failure to so many; they tell you what to do and how to do it by ALBERT EDWARD WIGGAM Author of “Sorry But You're Wrong About 1t,”” “The Marks of an Educated Man,” Etc. CAREFUL analysis was recently made of 500 letters written by college graduates who were applying for jobs. Believe it or not, 410 of them had misspelled words. A number of the writers did not give their addresses, and a few ac- tually did not sign their names! I am not exaggerating, and they were college graduates. If this represents the way college graduates go at the job of job-finding, it can only be imagined how high school graduates hunt jobs and what kind of letters they write. As another example, one of the great per- sonnel directors told me recently that he had read more than 50,000 letters of application, and only one was the kind of letter he would write if he were applying for a job. A leading director of personnel in New York City —a man responsible for the hiring and firing of 10,000 employees — informs me that his de- partment regularly interviews more than 60,000 pecple every year who want jobs. Each person is carefully told how to fill out a short printed application blank; and again, believe it or not, more than 35,000 of these 60,000 persons fill out the blanks incorrectly. Yet many of them are high school and collgge graduates. ; About a million young men and women now being graduated from our high schools and 150,000 more from our colleges will soon be looking for jobs. Yet there are several mil- lion persons of all ages and degrees of educa- tion already engaged in this same great treasure hunt, and unless your Uncle Joe or Cousin Ben has a store or factory still running it is going to require all your courage and energy and ingenuity to land a job. Here are some tips and suggestions which the leading psychologists, vocational coun- sellors, department executives, personnel di- rectors and technical writers have given me as to the best way to hunt a job. These tips represent the combined experience of the most expert studentsof job placement in the country. They all agree that the first thing to do is to get the following four wrong notions out of your head : Wrong Notion No. 1 — That good scholar- ship records in high school and college are of no help. Records show that business men are everywhere preferring those graduates who did well in their school studies. Some pre- fer those who ranked in the upper half and upper quarter of their classes. Wrong Notion No. 2 — That high scholar- ship records and abstract intelligence are the only requirements. If you have good personal- ity qualities, the ability to get along happily with others and to deal with hard problems of human relations, you stand a better chance than those who have merely high records in studies but lack these qualities of personality. Wrong Notion No. 3 -— That you are “‘cut out” for some particular vocation and can find out just what this is by some sort of mental test, and that, if you do not get this kind of job, you cannot succeed at anything else. Mental tests have great value but this notion about them is bosh. In fact, mental tests themselves show that every person with ordinary horse sense can succeed at a great many jobs. Your question should not be, “Just what am I cut out for?” but ‘“What occupations can I fit myself for?”’ Wrong Notion No. 4 — That there are only so many jobs, and when these are filled no more are to be had. In many lines this is not true. Many employers are looking desperately for men and women who will develop their oun jobs — work up some poor department or some new territory or devise some scheme that will get this or that department out of the red. “But,” you say, “I must first get a foot- hold in the business to do that.”” Certainly; but if your letter of application and interview show ingenuity and originality many an em- ployer will say to himself, “I believe that'’s the fellow I am looking for.” Now, if you have got these four wrong notions out of your head, there are four right notions you should get into it. They are: Right Notion No. 1 — That you must learn all you possibly can about yourself and your qualifications, and arrange this knowledge in your mind so you can present it briefly and clearly both by letter and by interview. Right Notion No. 2 — That you must can- vass the home field first. Unless you have some sort of line-up in some other region or city there is hardly one chance in a million of your getting a job by wandering over the country. If you leave your home town by all means get some lines of introduction. Right Notion No. 3 — That it is a loss of time and energy to start out tramping from factory to factory and office to office without a carefully mapped out plan of campaign. Right Notion No. 4 — That employers want to know — indeed must know — everything about you they can possibly get hold of. Just a little further comment here on Right Notion No. 1. Practically all colleges and universities have in their departments of psychology men or women especially trained in giving mental and personality tests and vocational counsel; and nearly all cities above 10,000 have vocational counsellors in their schools. Some cities have made extensive job surveys. They know of just about every job in their vicinity and have trained sym- pathetic experts ready to counsel every boy and girl in the schools. Yet I receive thousands of letters from college students — and so do many personnel men — asking pathetically where vocational tests and advice can be obtained. The same is true in many high schools. If 5. you desire tests of your abilities and voca- tional advice, either get in touch with the nearest college or university or else go over the matter with your school teachers and principals. In fact, there is a special organiza- tion of more than 300 psychologists, located in different cities over the country, trained in vocational testing and counselling. While of course there are not nearly enough of these facilities, there are more than are being used. Next, let us consider again Right Notions Nos. 2 and 3 — namely, canvassing the field *and mapping out the plan of campaign. On these points, the experts of the Personnel Re- search Federation of America, of which Dr. Walter V. Bingham is the head, advise that you first size up your own qualifications the best you can. Then make a list of all the firms in your city with which you might find a job. Read the newspapers. Talk to every business man you can. Go to the library, find all the information possible about these firms. It appeals to a manager favorably to have an applicant say, “I know just what you are do- ing in such-and-such a direction; I have studied your records; and I believe I could be of especial service in those particular departments.” I knew one young man who took a map of several states in his part of the country, learned all the firms in that region in the business he wanted to get into, and took up systematic- ally a correspondence with (Continued on page 13) Illustration by Elmore Brown They will need all their courage, energy and ingenuity to land a job